Fun & Fitness over 50

One thing I DON'T like about cycling ....
The hills I can handle. Dogs, cars, cold, heat, no problem.
But the WIND! The wind, I don't like.
There's nothing quite so demoralizing as grinding away in your lowest gear DOWNHILL with a relentless wind in your face.
Today I went out intending to do a 2 hour ride.
It was 24° but the wind was gusting to 35mph. I think the temp would have been OK if not for the wind. That really gets to me. So I cut it short by about 15 minutes and 4 miles.

Amazingly, the drink tube on my Camelbak didn't freeze up. Something is working as good anti-freeze in my lemon juice, sugar and salt blend. However, the feed on my bottle DID freeze up. The drink in the bottle was sort of slushy but drinkable. I just think a piece of slush clogged the top.

Maybe it's time to start working out at the gym and xc skiing. OK. Bring on the snow!

I've also been working on the famous "workbench". I found a bunch of discarded 2x4s last year and finally I'm getting around to doing this bench. I can see why they threw them away! Check these pix.
You can see the components go everywhich way but straight. Believe it or not all my dimensions are accurate and my joints are square but these 2x4s have some nasty bends in them.

From 2008_11_22

I bolted some of the pieces together to try to "force" them straight. Uh-uh. Nothing doing.

From 2008_11_22

This leg won't touch the ground when the other 3 are. (Yes I know it's not square. I didn't cut that one. That's how it came and I didn't have enough length to cut it square.)

From 2008_11_22

My solution .... shim the back. Works for me! :-)

From 2008_11_22

This one is my fault. I don't understand what's wrong with my head. Basically, I needed to cut 3" from the depth pieces to accomodate the thickness of the 2 cross pieces but only cut 1-1/2". Well, I'll just cut another 1-1/2" off it.

From 2008_11_22

Here's my first project waiting for the bench to be completed. I need to swap out the heel plates on these xc skis. Got these out of somebody's trash. Sweet!

From 2008_11_22

By the way, here's today's route: